


Through the Stomach

by DistantStorm



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Comfort Food, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Falling In Love, Food, Food Poisoning, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Friends to Lovers, in which Hawthorne is a foodie and Zavala cannot cook to save his life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-01-31 22:02:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18600262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DistantStorm/pseuds/DistantStorm
Summary: The way to a person's heart is through their stomach. The story of two people who come together told through a lens most can relate to: a good meal, a midnight snack, and everything in-between.





	1. Venison Stew

****

Suraya Hawthorne has always been a master at bringing people together. From the lost and the damned to the wealthy and well-to-do, she’s always had one trick up her sleeve, to help bridge the gap, to create common ground.

Food.

It’s the only thing she misses from the City: the smell of the open air markets, the street vendors selling delicacies that reflect the hodge-podge collaboration of ethnicities that comprises the general population. It isn’t the only thing she misses about her childhood home, though it’s a big part of it, too.

A meal brings people together, Devrim always told her, while Marc fussed over how best to arrange the table to accommodate guests, and made sure whatever spread they provided catered to allergies and cultural restrictions. There is no better way to display to both friend and foe alike that you are committed to serving them than by cooking them a meal.

None of that has anything to do with why she offers him the venison stew she's managed to put together with a handful of assorted roots, scavenged greens, and a doe she'd felled much earlier. In fact, it’s not something she wants to do at all. The Commander has been entirely insufferable since his arrival to their newfound safe haven.

She knows more ways into and out of the City than he does, she’s got better survival skills in this environment than he could ever hope to have, and she understands the needs of the people on a primal level that he - a  _Guardian_  - ever could. The fact that he continues to disregard her and her advice is infuriating. She does not want to boss him around. She’d much rather go right back into the wilds and never look back.

But that’s not something she can do. Not with all these people who need her. So she bears him, and his Guardians,  _and_  their haughty absurdities. And if she’s a bit petulant about it, well, she hasn’t been around this many people in years. It’s a bit grating.

However, nothing is nearly as grating as his growling stomach has been. She isn’t stupid. She realizes that the Guardian contingent is far more accustomed to going without food than the civilians. She also knows that every time he’s given protein rations, half of them are given away to ailing refugees. Begrudgingly, she can admit he’s a nice guy. He’s got a moral code, a sense of duty, honor, all of it.

It’s the only reason why she doesn’t think too hard on scooping out a rather generous serving and holding it out to him. He’s sitting on a bench near the fire, bent forward, elbows rested on his knees, fingers steepled in front of his mouth, staring into the fire. Hawthorne can see the moment the scent of the stew hits his nose, sees him jerk and swallow hard. She wonders if he was purposely sitting where he was as not to be downwind.

He’s hungry. But he’s wary, too.

“Take it.”

“It’s fine. Certainly someone else could-”

“ _Eat_ , Zavala. You’re starving.”

He looks to her, stomach growling embarrassingly loud as she grabs one of his wide hands and thrusts the wooden bowl into it. A bit of potato bobs, and the roughly carved spoon clacks against the rim. She tips her head to the side. It's clear he doesn't completely trust her. Training Louis - a wild animal - was easier than coaxing this man to eat.

She reaches over to the pot, scoops up her own serving and drops onto the ground in front of him, her back to the bench he sits on. The fire casts shadows across her face as she blows on gravy and meat and ladles a spoonful to her mouth.

When he follows suit, it's obvious. There's the quietest groan - gratifying, to say the least - and then the usually patient, dignified Commander continues to drain his dish as if he hasn't had anything to eat in a week.

Hawthorne ignores the niggling feeling that it’s probably the truth.

“Slow down,” She chides, pulling the bowl from his hand before she's a quarter way finished with her own. Even so, she fills it back to the brim, skipping the gravy and fishing out more meat from the deep pot. “I made plenty. It’s not going anywhere.”

Blue eyes blink wide as he takes the bowl back from her grasp. “You made this?”

She clicks her tongue, tips her head back against the bench as she picks her own bowl from the ground. “Surprised?”

“It's good.” Nothing about his compliment sounds begrudging, though she's pretty sure anything that isn't food gel or protein paste is gourmet to him right now.

“Thanks.”

“Where did you get the seasoning?”

She smirks, looking down into her bowl, at bits of leek and onion, thyme and rosemary. “Traded a shop-keep. They needed the meat.” It's not a fair trade, but he isn't the only benevolent one among them.

Zavala hums. They continue eating in silence. It's not nearly as charged as far as their usual conversations go. “One of the scouting parties says they'll be entering the City,” He mentions, selecting each word carefully. “But I do not know of any entry points on the Western border that match their routes much less any map.”

“My teams use smuggler's routes, my maps. They aren't exactly public knowledge.”

He coughs. “You smuggled?”

“Still do, in a way. Mostly supplies - medicine, produce, food, that sort of thing - but don't get me wrong, weapons, too.” She rolls her eyes, but it's less angry and more playful. “We do what we gotta do, y'know?”

His reply is quieter, gentle almost. As if he isn't expecting much, but dares to hope anyway. “Would you show me?”

Hawthorne thinks on it a moment, but decides that feeding him should stave off him completely betraying her for at least the rest of the evening. “Why not,” She agrees.

“Thank you.”

“You got it.”


	2. Horse Nettle

The first time she trusts him - or at least the first time she notices that she trusts him - it backfires. She realizes it with shaking hands and watery eyes as her stomach recoils and her tongue feels thick in her mouth.

Her eyes narrow for half a second, anticipating betrayal(he served her long before he helped himself), but she watches him raise his own bowl to his lips. He's not a liar, her gut tells her. That's what has her stumbling by him, knocking the bowl out of his hands while she makes for the treeline to wretch.

Hardly a blink's worth of confusion later, Zavala has a hand on her elbow and is trying to help her. She jerks from his grip and lands on her hands and knees, throwing up an alarming amount for someone her size.

He lingers anyway, eyes blown wide and fists clenched at his side, body bowed forward as if any movement will send him spiraling to his knees beside her.

“What,” She pants, her stomach making an unpleasant gurgle, “What did the plant look like?” She didn't check, she thinks as she hurls. She always checks what they eat, even when it's her scouts who know what they're doing.

“I - what?”

“The tomatoes. In the hot pot. You found them,” She spits and moves to stand, and he can see the shake in her step as she rights herself. “What did the plant look like?”

Zavala stammers, “I don't know, it was a vine!”

“Was it green and lush?”

“I-I don't-” He takes another step forward when she starts vomiting again. It's terrifying to watch.

“The tomatoes,” She gasps, after a particularly violent uprising of stomach content. “Were they bright red or yellow?”

His eyebrows draw together in confusion. “Yellowish orange? They look similar in-”

“We're not in the City,” She says, and where she'd normally round on him in anger, she sounds hoarse and tired. Her arm is barred over her stomach, like standing is painful to her. “Those weren't tomatoes,” Hawthorne continues, reaching for the cooling pot and forcing herself not to gag when she dumps it out at the edge of the brush nearby. “You brought back horse nettle. It's poisonous. You could have killed someone.”

The look on his face is one she'll never forget. He's looking at her as though she might disappear, his eyes glimmering so brightly she worries for a second that this hulking man might start to cry.

The Farm overseer throws her hands out in front of her, waving haphazardly. “I-it's not a big deal,” She murmurs, watching him try and rationalize what she's related to him. It's apparent that he's taken her words to heart. “My stomach's pretty tough. It'll pass in a couple days.”

“I poisoned you,” He whispers, realization blooming in his eyes, guilt blossoming unpleasantly in his gut.

If she were feeling better, she'd say something far more sarcastic. Instead, she settles for quipping, “Yeah,” She tries to make light of it, her tone falling flat, “And you still couldn't finish me off.” It's not her best work, that much she can admit. To make things worse, he's looking at her like he's trying to see clean through to her soul.

“I am so sorry,” He replies, eyes still drilling into hers. They glimmer so earnestly as he offers himself up, “What do you need? What can I do?”

-/

Hawthorne had told him that she would be fine. That doesn’t stop him from eyeing her across the fire, luminous gaze blinking over to her every few minutes. She's got a blanket wrapped around her. He can see the tremor in her shoulders, and based on how she's curled in on herself she's either still cold, in pain, or both.

She's supposed to be on watch, but he can tell that she's fading fast. Her hand stays on the stock of her rifle, and no matter how glossy her eyes get, they're still reasonably alert. He is not nearly as unaware as people think, for how stoic or aloof he may seem.

He wonders how long she's been alone.

“I have it,” He murmurs, when she shakes herself awake for the fourth or fifth time in as many minutes. “Rest. You'll recover far quicker.”

Zavala thinks he's done enough to keep the guilt from bleeding into his voice - she'd told him off several times for feeling bad about things, much to his surprise (they had been getting along better, lately, though) - but she pins him with knowing eyes. “I'm fine.”

“You're sick.”

“I'm. _Fine_.” And then, to confirm that he is absolutely correct, she lurches to her feet, wobbles a few steps from the fire and throws up again.

It's positively revolting. When he finally leaves her alone, walks away and leaves her to it, she lets herself slouch a a bit. She doesn't know why she's trying so hard not to make him feel bad about this, but it bothers her when his glowing eyes wobble and look unsure in his guilt. If she were feeling better, she'd stress and analyze the hell out of it (and the squirming sensation in her belly that accompanies it).

She loses track of time, retching into the dirt, hugging herself though she know it won't fix the stomach cramps - it has to run its course. A cool flannel is pressed against her forehead after a while, and when she's relatively certain there can be little else left in her stomach, a dry one is handed to her with a bottle of water.

The groan that leaves her when she finally rises to her feet stops short when she sees Zavala purposefully looking away, as if giving her the illusion of privacy will make her lean on him. She sighs. She wants to sleep, but this is her responsibility.

Though, he said…

Her eyes blink once, twice, before she casts her gaze to the side. “You can take the first half,” She instructs, leaning the majority of her slight weight on him as they walk back to the fire. He lowers her onto the bench he'd been sitting on, and pulls another blanket around her.

She tells herself the flush is from the fever, from him poisoning her. Not from the fact that she doesn't remember the last time she allowed someone to shower her with this kind of care.

He sits beside her, his auto rifle propped up against the end of the bench. “I'll wake you up for the second.”

“No you won't,” She mumbles defensively, a few minutes later, already dozing. This has taken more out of her than she'd care to admit.

He chuckles, and instead of finding it grating, it’s almost soothing to her. She shifts, getting comfortable, and if her head rests against his pauldron, she doesn't pay it any mind. It's cool and her face feels hot and he’s too polite to say anything. “No,” He agrees. “I won't.”

At some point in the night she manages to reposition herself with her head on his thigh. The flannel slips from her forehead. She thinks she hears the trickle of a water nearby, but then there are thick fingers gently swiping sweaty hair away from her forehead and the flannel is reapplied so gently she realizes she must be dreaming.


	3. Sharing

She drops next to him, large plate in her hands. He's in the middle of discussing the tactical advantages and disadvantages of a multi-front battle, complete with examples, with some of her men. Many of the militiamen, who do not have ages of battle to recall, relish in hearing him recant any of the battles they'd only read about in intimate detail.

He pauses only for a brief moment to take the second bun from her plate, dipping it in some of the gravy on the other side before taking a bite.

She doesn't react. It's why her plate is so full, after all.

Across the fire, however, a set cyan-blue optics refocus and an elbow is nudged against a fuschia-violet clothed forearm.

The woman who belongs to that forearm swats at the owner of the optics and elbow, but it's short-lived. Back on the other side, their third takes the fork from the newcomer's hands with a delicate touch and a glowing look. Their knees bump against each other in a subtly obvious display.

“Holliday has a pool on now long it takes for them to get together,” Cayde whispers into Ikora's ear - and he actually whispers. He doesn't want to make it common knowledge.

Ikora frowns and maintains her steely yellow gaze on the flickering orange-red-whites of the fire.

There isn't time for this. They're at war.

-/

“And if we die tomorrow?” Comes the heavy baritone of Shaxx, when Ikora makes her feelings known, days later. Cayde lingers nearby, above them, pretending like he doesn't care though he's eavesdropping hard.

Of all people, she expected Shaxx to understand.

He gleans that from her deadpan reaction. “She's not a Guardian,” Ikora replies. “Even if we do live through this, she'll die.”

“Eventually.”

Ikora crosses her arms. “You're not concerned.”

“No, I am not.” Shaxx stares her down through his impassive helm. “They are the two people here least likely to put their happiness before the greater good. I wish they'd quit dancing around each other already.”

-/

She sits to his right, with Cayde to their left when the patrol group returns: hours late and worse for wear. The sharp-eyed falconer is helping to carry someone more wounded. Ikora hears the tiniest gap between breaths, sees Zavala's fingers curl into fists that make the leather of his gloves scratch and scrape.

Hawthorne promises to report off to him once she sees her men to triage. Zavala acquiesces. He excuses himself twenty minutes later.

Not much longer after that, from where they sit on the porch that Tyra occupies during the day, Cayde and Ikora hear the hushed beginnings of a fight.

“It was fine.”

“You'd say that if you got shot,” Zavala's voice doesn't quite carry as well as the hiss that Hawthorne makes.

There's no reply to that.

The sound of heavy footfalls headed back the way the duo came from stop after three or four steps. “Is that why you're limping, Suraya?”

She growls at how tender his voice is, at the hurt - on her behalf - that laces through it. “You already know.”

“You're covered in blood, and your men were quite distressed that you saw to them before yourself...” His voice drops too low for them to hear the rest of it, save for the scathing, worried tone of his voice.

“If I wasn’t fine, I wouldn’t be walking - or standing, for that matter,” Hawthorne eventually replies, loud enough for others to hear who aren’t eavesdropping.

After a few silent moments, the footsteps start again, but slower and uneven. Zavala is helping her like she'd been helping her scout earlier, one of her arms slung over his shoulders and a hand splayed on her hip, arm behind her back. He leads her into the farmhouse across the way.

Cayde casts his gaze to Ikora. “See, I'm not sure if they're the same person, or if they just deserve each other.”

The Commander exits the building not too long after, when the sounds of an old shower hissing and creaking pipes disrupt the natural quiet. Ikora shifts and rises. Cayde grabs her wrist and indicates she should sit back down.

“I don't like this.”

“Yeah, I get that. If it were you or me - and it has been, if the ol' memory banks recall - he'd roll his eyes and tell us not to lose focus.” Cyan optics blink light onto his friend, and his hand slides from her wrist to cover her hand. “It’s never him.”

She flips her palm and squeezes. “That's why I worry.”

“Have you ever talked with her? Hawthorne? Poncho?” Their eyes are momentarily redirected to the flickering light that's turned on in the upstairs window of the dilapidated pre-collapse construct. Cayde shakes his head. The angle is too steep to see what's happening unless someone is standing right against the window.

Ikora shakes her head.

“Girl can handle herself. She's like a less academic, more outdoorsy version of you, with a moral code like Big Blue.”

“I assure you, Cayde, we have very little in common.”

“Fine,” He relents. “But both of you scare me a little, so you at least share that much.”

-/

She's propped herself up against the headboard, data-pad in one palm while she uses the opposite hand to scroll through reports. Her right leg is splayed out in front of her, dark skin flushed and angry, tiny rivulets of blood running down the toned flesh and onto the towel pooled beneath it.

On the bedside table that's actually an old milk crate atop a cinder block, rests a decent sized slug that she'd pulled from the wound.

Zavala seems to see it first when he returns, a wrapped container in one hand and a case of medical supplies in the other. “What if it had hit an artery?”

“It didn't. I would've bled out before we made it back to camp.”

“You could have bled out right now,” He insists.

She shifts when he sets what absolutely smells like food all the way at the foot of the bed, purposefully out of reach. Frowning, she asks, “How many times do I have to tell you I'm fine?”

He presses down gently around the wound, one eyebrow arching like an elegant question. She bites back a cry.

“Your conviction might fool others,” He muses, ethereal blue eyes locked on her dark ones, “But you do not fool me.”

She swallows hard and looks away when he pours an antiseptic over the wound, the angry fizz indicative of potential infection to be stopped cut by the sweetness of wide fingers rubbing her knee.

Lower, he breathes, “I don't want anything to happen to you.”

When she looks back at him, he is engrossed with evaluating her injury, making sure she can move her leg - really, it's a flesh wound and the bruising will hurt more than anything else - and also not holding eye contact.

It's why she puts a hand on his cheek, and his eyes slip closed. “Neither of us are the type to sit back and watch our people fight a war - not when we can help it.”

“You have more freedom in that than I,” He comments.

“But you understand.”

“I do, I just-”

“I try to be careful,” She reasons, with just the hint of a smile.

He shakes his head. “Funny, they were telling me that you charged a Captain to get this-” She winces when he wipes the wound and lifts her bare leg easily, moving to sit at the edge of the bed. He rests her calf on his right shoulder and winds the bandage around and around.

“They would have killed half my squad.” She's not defensive about it, simply matter of fact.

“That's what they told me, as well.” He adjusts her leg when finished, returning it carefully back to the bed. “Alright?”

“Mhmm.” His eyes seem to lighten up when she squirms over toward him, making room on the other side of the meager bed. “Stay a while?”

He reaches for the other, cloth-wrapped container at the end of the bed. “I do suspect I was given enough for you to share.” He lowers himself beside her, not bothering to doff his armor and unwraps what is to be their dinner.

“I don’t know,” She smirks, teasingly, “I’m pretty hungry.”

His laugh is quiet, “I think you’ll make due.”


	4. Alinazik

He’s not a picky eater. In fact, she's reasonably certain that he does not view eating as more than a necessary function for maintaining life. Or, alternatively, for entertaining guests who come to petition him for either support or political favors.

She is no stranger to either of these sentiments. There was an entire year that her diet was made up of wild ferret. After a while, it's just another chore to find and provide oneself with sustenance. And, of course, as a child, her pseudo-parents entertained colleagues and superior officers in attempts to land deals and make good impressions.

But, if there's one thing Devrim and Marc also exposed her to, it was enjoying food, be it a delicacy or a common comfort. There's nothing comforting about ration bars and food gel unless you're starving. She knows that first hand.

It's the reason why she's arranged this meeting. Suraya Hawthorne just isn't a calendars and meeting kind of gal - at least she wasn't, until someone handed her this data-pad and it came with this handy little calendar for all the things the Vanguard, Consensus, and City Admin invited her to. Apparently, it was also the only way to get more than a greeting out of the good Commander.

Not that she's missed his face or anything like that. That has nothing to do with her insisting on a late meeting, following a jam-packed day for him - seems rather invasive that one can see all the time-slots someone has for a day - with a request to discuss expenditures for refugee relocation. She won’t be mentioning that she's bailed on the meeting she has before theirs (if she can answer in a message, she's not traveling across town, her tablet also has a video call function if it's that important) to bring him some real food.

It doesn't matter that it cost her a small fortune to get the cut of lamb from the only butcher up and running in the City, she knows good comfort food. And she knows he could use it. She hasn't seen him in weeks except in meetings or in passing. He doesn't look like he's taking care of himself.

He wasn't taking care of himself before, either. Idiot.

And, to be fair, she doesn't need that much help with expenditures, anyway. The Clans take care of their own, and City Government has been generous. Though, she's sure he'll want to discuss it anyway. He is far too straight laced to let their formal meeting turn into... a social visit? That’s probably the best way to put it.

Technically, they’re friends.

-/

He is twenty minutes late to their meeting (it's in his office), and looks considerably haggard by her estimation by the time she sees him striding toward her in a hurry. “I should have told you to come late,” He says, in lieu of greeting her. “I am never on time when I have this many meetings.” His eyes are so expressive, even if the rest of him stays stoic and firm.

It hits her hard, how much she's missed him. They were practically attached at the hip toward the end of the war, and things spiraled into chaos quickly following Ghaul’s defeat. It hasn’t been just the two of them in over a month?

“It's fine,” She replies, tipping her head to the side. She had figured the reason there were chairs and a nice couch outside the door were for his influx of visitors. “Really. This won't take long anyway.”

“If you have somewhere to be-” His Ghost appears, unlocking the door before flickering out of sight again. He turns back as his little partner does her thing, falling silent when he notices Hawthorne carefully balancing her tablet atop a blue, yellow, and orange patterned thermal bag. He sighs, as if she’s unraveled some great puzzle and figured him out. Relieved, it seems that she clearly planned on staying a bit.

“This calendar business is really intrusive, you know,” She smirks at him. The tablet wobbles, threatening to fall from where it's perched and he snatches it. “I know everything you're doing, all the time.”

He jumps headlong into their banter, quipping, “Spying on me?”

“Actually, no. Your calendar is shared with me.”

“Yes,” He confirms. “You, Cayde, Ikora, and Amanda. I believe you can set it however you wish.”

“Huh.”

He smiles then, still really only with his eyes, and leads her to the work table in the center of his office. She sets down what she's brought and makes a quick check of the contents before pulling them out.

“What is-”

“Long story short,” She says, handing him his own cutlery as he sits down across from her, “The Clans don't need any monetary support from the Consensus or the Vanguard at this juncture.” She hears the snuff, the carefully toned-down snort of the Commander. “Don't laugh at me. You sic me in this arena, I'm gonna start using your fancy lingo.”

“Of course,” He concedes easily. “Since there is nothing pressing, am I correct in assuming we can move on to more important matters?”

She nods, eyebrows rising and falling as she begins divvying up containers.

“What have you brought?” He wonders, concerned. Perhaps also a bit awed. Good. He should be grateful, she thinks. And also, maybe going this route was a little over the top.

“Alinazik,” She tells him, and resists the urge to laugh when he looks at her like she’s speaking in tongues. “Lamb kebab, aubergine, tomato, yogurt. Little bit of spice in the pepper.”

“Lamb?”

She shrugs. “Yeah. Okay?”

He nods, but continues, confused. “Suraya there’s nowhere in this city that-”

“There is actually one butcher, who I saw this afternoon in the market. Beside the point. Food’s getting cold.” She pops the lid on the container of meat. “Zavala. We’re not in the wilds. You think I was going to go hunt you another deer? I think we’ve had enough venison for a while.”

“Of course you made this.”

“It’s amazing what I can do with a real kitchen,” She grouses. “Clearly you barely know how to use a microwave.”

He frowns down at the containers, which makes her sigh and pull them back her way. “My position does not exactly allow for culinary mastery,” He admits. “This smells divine. Is that mint?”

“Well I’ll be,” She says, in mock surprise, looking up at him with a playful smirk. She’s just finished arranging the meal on his plate and hands it over. “Seems you might not be as hopeless as I thought.”

He laughs, and it’s impossible for her not to follow suit. “I’ve missed this,” he confesses, when it fades into the quiet scrape of forks against their plates.

“It’s not the same,” She agrees.

“That is - I mean,” He frowns, before looking up at her. “I’ve missed you.”

“Good to know.” Hawthorne’s dark eyes soften, looking down at her meal with a sort of hazy smile before she meets his gaze again. “Glad it’s not just me.”


End file.
